(a) Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention generally relate to a thin film transistor array panel.
(b) Description of the Related Art
In a thin film transistor array panel that is used in a general display device, a plurality of gate lines and a plurality of data lines are formed to intersect each other, a pixel electrode and a thin film transistor, which is a switching element, are formed in an intersecting region of the gate line and the data line, and signal input pads that are electrically connected to a driving device are formed at one end of each of the gate line and the data line. The driving device is mounted in a flexible circuit layer in an integrated circuit (IC) form to be attached to a thin film transistor array panel.
The general thin film transistor array panel is manufactured to use a glass substrate as a base substrate. However, because a glass substrate is heavy and brittle, it is inappropriate to use the glass substrate in a display device that has a light weight, that endures some deformation, and that requires that it does not break on impact.
Therefore, research and development of a flexible display device that replaces a conventional glass substrate with a flexible substrate has been undertaken, and such a flexible display device is manufactured by replacing the glass substrate with a thin flexible substrate, for example, a plastic substrate.
However, unlike a conventional glass substrate, the size of the flexible substrate may change because a flexible substrate such as a plastic substrate expands or contracts according to a manufacturing environment. Particularly, in a process of bonding a flexible film in which a driving IC is mounted to a signal input pad of the plastic substrate, there is a problem in that the signal input pad and a signal pad of the flexible film are misaligned due to expansion or contraction of the substrate.
The above information disclosed in this Background section is only for enhancement of understanding of the background and therefore it may contain information that does not form the prior art that is already known in this country to a person of ordinary skill in the art.